A logged area of Admiralty Island sandwiched between stands of old-growth forest regrows. Logging, second-growth timber and environmental protection were among the issues the Tongass Futures Roundtable tried to address.

The Tongass Futures Roundtable is shutting down. The organization tried to resolve Southeast Alaska forest-issue conflicts.

It formed about seven years ago.

Organizers hoped to bring together all parties involved in the forest to craft compromises on land-use issues, such as logging and habitat protection.

“The roundtable brought people together who had never had to sit across from each other at a table. The normal environment was a courtroom,” says Bruce Botelho, the group’s facilitator and moderator.

The former attorney general and Juneau mayor says roundtable members decided to end their work during a meeting earlier this month.

“One of the benefits for us to dissolve right now is to create the opportunity for people to come together and perhaps learn from our experience, but also build on it. And one would hope that any assembly of stakeholders would truly bring back the whole range of participants,” he says.

A map of the Tongass National Forest. Image courtesy USFS.

Membership originally included industry, government, tribal and environmental leaders. But about two years ago, the state, timber representatives, four towns and some conservation groups pulled out.

“We didn’t have enough movement in the direction we felt needed to occur,” says State Forester Chris Maisch, one of the original roundtable members.

“So the governor decided it would be best to put state energy and time and resources into a task force, which he established through an administration order,” he says.

Maisch chaired that task force, which released its final report a few months ago.

It recommended a number of actions meant to increase logging. One was expanding state forests. Another was revising state rules to help small timber operators.

Yet another called for the federal government to turn two million acres of the Tongass over to the state to be managed for harvest.

Maisch says the timber task force has since shut down.

Botelho says the roundtable eventually decided it couldn’t fully do its work without the groups that left. It will cease operations July 1st. But he says it achieved some of its goals.

“We devoted a great deal of time to examining the proposed mental health land exchange between the state and the trust and ended up endorsing a process, which is underway. And I think that, absent the support of the roundtable, would have been more difficult,” Botelho says.

He says some of the roundtable’s working groups will also continue meeting. One focuses on Alaska Native issues, another on sustainable forests.

The Tongass Futures Roundtable had about 35 members and tried to reach decisions by consensus. State Forester Maisch says that just didn’t work.

“It was a well-intentioned effort. And a lot of people spent a lot of time in trying to make that process work. And unfortunately, it just wasn’t the right time and the right place. So it’s too bad that it didn’t come to a better conclusion,” he says.

The roundtable had funding support from the Rasmuson Foundation and other donors. The Juneau office of the Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization, staffed the group.

Roundtable Coordinator Norm Cohen says money was not the reason the group decided to dissolve.

 Subscribe in a reader

Sitka resident and Tlingit weaver Teri Rofkar takes staff from the National Museum of the American Indian up Blue Lake Road last year. The group was in town for field study, learning about the origins of many of the objects they keep track of in Washington, D.C. (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

Up a staircase, through a bedroom, and there it is: a room lit by skylights and tall windows. The studio, where Teri Rofkar weaves her work.

Rofkar was named the 2013 Rasmuson Distinguished Artist on Wednesday. The annual award is given by the Rasmuson Foundation to an Alaska artist with a history of accomplishment. It brings with it a $40,000 prize.

Listen to iFriendly audio.

It is in this studio that Rofkar has shelves of books, on subjects ranging from Russians in Alaska to Tlingit ethnobotany. Bins on a low shelf hold wool.

“Mountain goat, merino, alpaca and bison, because I did use the buffalo wool for that robe for the park service, and dog,” she says. “I’m working on a dog robe.”

There’s a spinning wheel in the middle of the room and a weaving frame, on which hangs the beginning of her next project. And over on one of the shelves, right next to an elegant blue vase, is a small frame, holding the picture of a shirtless, chiseled man, smoldering at the camera lens.

“Oh, he’s just purely inspiration,” Rofkar says. “I’ve probably had him for 30 years. And he’s still inspiring. I think that’s the one thing I’ve had to frisk out of gals’ hands. Like, ‘You put that right back!’”

Of course, Rofkar’s real inspirations for her work come from all around her. Maybe it’s a story told by a family member. Or the 1964 Alaska earthquake. She calls herself a basket weaver, but much of her work is traditional Tlingit robes. Baskets, she says, big baskets that hold people.

She’s been weaving for years. Her work is often surprising — incorporating an unusual color, or a new feature, like DNA symbols woven into a recent robe she did about goats. She says finding new ways to appreciate the art is important.

Rofkar: That’s where the rubber meets the road. Are you still doing it? Does it still inspire you? Are you still excited to get in there and do the dirty work? Absolutely.
KCAW: Why?
Rofkar: There’s so many more discoveries. It’s like the ocean we haven’t explored.
KCAW: I remember interviewing you a few years back for a robe you were working on for the national park. And what I remember about that interview is you opened a door the robe was sitting in before it was unveiled and you spoke TO the robe.
Rofkar: Yes.
KCAW: I hear a lot of personification in the way you talk about your art.
Rofkar: It embodies the place, right? Maybe in that case it was a reflection of the history of the park and the place of the park. This robe over here that’s about the mountain goat on Baranof Island has the double-helix and DNA stranding. The science I’ve embedded in it — the double helix — is accurate. They are an entity, just as the materials that I harvest, the tree people and the ferns. The place that we’re at, we live here, but there are others who have been living here for many more thousands of years than us. It’s relationships.

Rofkar received her award from the Rasmuson Foundation at an event in Anchorage. She says the money will help her take some time to focus on art for the sake of art, rather than worrying about weaving things that will earn money.

“Rasmuson has such a leap of faith to support all these artists, and they’re calling it a vision,” Rofkar said. “But for us, it’s our journey. They’re making our journey possible.”

What Rofkar does is rare, but she’s working to share her artform. She’s demonstrated and taught all over the country. When she started, she says she felt like her artform was on the verge of going away.

“It seemed like such a fragile art form,” Rofkar said. “There’s very few baskets. I think Tlingit basketry was declared lost in the (19)50s. I felt like I was single handedly holding it up. The robes: there are so few of them. There’s getting to be more. But here I was feeling like the carrier of the culture. And I realize now, whoops, this basketry, this weaving, it’s been going on for thousands and thousands of years. I’m the one that’s fragile. The art will continue on.”

On the way out the door, Rofkar sits me down in front of her computer, and plays a video produced for the Rasmuson Foundation. On the screen, she’s sitting at the spinning wheel in her studio.

And as she finishes introducing herself, heavy metal music begins to play and her name zooms onto the screen in big letters. It’s a startling contrast, but as it turns out, the perfect choice by the filmmaker.

KCAW: This is not music somebody would normally associate with…
Rofkar: Spinning and weaving. I love heavy metal.
KCAW: Do you?
Rofkar: I do.
KCAW: Like who?
Rofkar: Oh, Primus…

Another surprise, from Teri Rofkar.

 Subscribe in a reader

A group of ravens is known collectively as an “unkindness,” and today they lived up to the term. The birds managed to, shall we say, aerate the lawn in front of our studios at the Cable House. This is common (if annoying) behavior for ravens, who are feasting on crane fly larvae they find in the lawn. Now if only we could teach them to operate a rake… (KCAW photo by Ed Ronco)

Michelle Bonnet Hale is the director of the Division of Water for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Michelle Bonnet Hale is the director of the Division of Water for the Department of Environmental Conservation. She spoke to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday (5-15-13)

Hale was on the road to assure the public that a controversial bill passed this spring by the legislature would not impair the state’s ability to ensure that cruise ship wastewater met quality standards.

HB 80 repealed several of the regulations placed on cruise ships by the public in a 2006 citizen initiative, and allowed water samples to be taken in mixing zones behind ships, rather than at the point of discharge.

Hale told the chamber that the cruise industry had already begun to upgrade its sanitation technology in 2004, following several high-profile pollution cases involving fecal coliforms. She said “the initiative addressed a problem that had already been solved.”

She said the state’s remaining concerns were the levels of ammonia, copper, nickel, and zinc.

Here’s an excerpt of her remarks on copper:

In 2003 researchers in the state of Washington found in one study (that they’re trying to replicate now) that copper at low concentrations in freshwater had an impact on juvenile salmon’s ability to smell – called their olfactory capability. And we know how important that is because it’s their ability to smell that gets the fish back to their streams and rivers of origin. So it’s a very alarming study. Researchers pointed out that additional research was needed, and that this study couldn’t be extrapolated to salt water. So additional research in salt water was needed. In salt water there are a couple of things that happen: One, fishes’ bodies change when they go from fresh water to salt water. Their physiology changes, the way they take things in changes. And the second is that freshwater, especially in a place like Alaska, is a very pure water. And saltwater is simply not pure – there’s a lot in it. That also has an effect on what happens to the copper. So, recently there’s a draft study by those same researchers on the effects of copper in saltwater on fish. Those same researchers found that the effects on fish of copper in saltwater happen at about 50 times the concentration that it happens at in freshwater.

Hale is a chemist by profession, and a lifelong Alaskan. She told the chamber that her staff knew how to protect water. “We have the tools,” she said.

Listen to Hale’s full remarks to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce.

There is a significant amount of opinion – even in the scientific community – opposing Hale’s assessment. Read previous reporting on the issue, and an opposing scientific opinion.

To a lot of us, running seems like work, or at least, exercise. But for a group of girls in Sitka, running is actually pretty fun. They’re part of an after-school program that combines running with learning important life lessons. It even inspired one fifth-grader to dream about her future.

Nikkia Brazell is 10 years old and loves to run.

“It feels really fun,” she said, “and sometimes when you get to run with your friend, you have fun, you get to laugh.”

The girls listen to their coach, whom they call Miss Kym, as she explains the day’s lesson about choosing friends who are positive and inclusive. (Photo by Anne Brice/KCAW)

But she hasn’t always been into running. She started liking it a lot more when she joined Girls on the Run last year. It’s a national after-school program designed to inspire girls to be confident and healthy.

On the last day of the 24-lesson program, the girls get new Nike running shoes to wear during the 5K race. (Photo by Anne Brice/KCAW)

Girls on the Run got its start in Sitka five years ago. Every spring, girls in grades three through five meet in the school gym at Keet Gooshi Heen twice a week.

Brian Sparks is a domestic violence prevention specialist at the women’s shelter in town, Sitkans Against Family Violence, or SAFV. He organizes the local branch of Girls on the Run. He says he hopes the program strengthens bonds among girls and makes them less likely to become victims of violence in the future.

“It’s a program that I think really creates resiliency within the girls individually and also within their peer groups and within the community,” he said.

Girls on the Run is a national program that began in North Carolina in 1996. It now has 55,000 volunteers across the United States and serves more than 130,000 girls in more than 200 cities. (Photo by Anne Brice/KCAW)

Every practice has a lesson. It might have to do with how to stop bullying or resist peer pressure. Kym Johns is Nikkia’s coach and is leading today’s lesson.

“One very powerful idea that we are going to talk about today is the power we have to choose our friends,” she tells her team of girls.

Kym Johns is a paraprofessional at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School. This is first year being a volunteer coach for Girls on the Run, and says she plans to do it again next year. (Photo by Anne Brice/KCAW)

The game encourages girls to choose friends who celebrate who they are just the way they are. Kym reads positive and negative messages, like, “Awesome job” or “You could have done better than that.” Depending on the type of message, the girls either run in a circle with a bounce in their step or slowly drag their feet.

For Nikkia, one exercise stands out among the rest: Silent running. “Well it’s to help think of stuff that might encourage others and you,” she said.

And she says running silently gives her quiet time to think about what she wants to do and who she wants to be. “I thought about being a teacher, and a coach for girls on the run. I also want to learn how to speak Tlingit because I have already learned the Pledge of Allegiance in Tlingit.”

All of the girls gathered by the Sitka Sound Science Center on Saturday for the 5K race. They had their faces painted and hair sprayed with bright colors before the event to get pumped and show some team spirit. (Photo by Anne Brice/KCAW)

Brian says the idea is that these girls will bring the lessons they learned in Girls on the Run into the future, and that it’ll lead to greater social change.

“They spread these lessons,” he said. “Let’s say the not gossiping lesson. Well, okay so for somebody who’s not in Girls on the Run starts to gossip, there’s this critical mass of girls who have attended Girls on the Run who don’t accept that behavior anymore.”

On Saturday, all the girls’ hard work is put to the test. They’re running a 5K race along the ocean, through Totem Park. They organize into running groups and pose for a group photo.

Nikkia ran the 5K last year, and says that even though it was really hard, she was proud that she set a goal and stuck to it.

To learn more about Girls on the Run, visit: http://www.girlsontherun.org/ and for more information about the Sitka branch, go to: http://www.safv.org/girls-on-the-run.html.

An Aleutian tern nests near a Yakutat beach. Image from www.yakutatternfestival.org.

Yakutat is gearing up for an influx of birders.

They’re coming to the northern Southeast Alaska community to celebrate the return of the Aleutian tern, a somewhat rare seabird.

There’s a lot yet to learn about its migration patterns. But what Yakutat residents do know is that the seabirds return every spring.

“We have one of the southernmost known and one of the largest known breeding colonies of Aleutian tern,” says Susan Oehlers, a Forest Service biologist and one of the Yakutat Tern Festival’s organizers.

“So we decided we wanted to have a birding festival highlighting the Aleutian terns as well as the other natural and cultural resources here in Yakutat,” she says.

The tern festival began in 2011. This year’s event runs May 30th to June 2nd.

It attracts bird-watchers from around the state and the Lower 48.

But Oehlers says it’s not all about birds.

“It’s a very family-friendly festival. It’s for birders and non birders. So we have field trips looking at birds, but also all the great scenery we have here like the Hubbard Glacier and Russell Fjord and getting out into the bay,” she says.

Bird-banding and calling sessions are among events planned for kids.

The festival has a focus on Alaska Native culture and will include performances by Yakutat’s Mount Saint Elias Dancers.

Tlingit carver Doug Chilton is the festival’s featured artist. Authors and language experts Richard and Nora Marks Dauenhauer are the keynote speakers.

Festival field trips will take birders to the Aleutian tern’s breeding grounds. But they won’t get too close.

“They are sensitive to disturbance. So we keep a distance from where they’re nesting. But you can still get a pretty close-up view of them and possibly even see one on a nest,” she says.

The Aleutian tern lives in Alaska and eastern Siberia. Researchers are studying Yakutat’s colony to learn more population trends, nesting and migration patterns.